Download GRADE 11 ELA CURRICULUM AMERICAN LITERATURE AND

GRADE 11 ELA CURRICULUM
AMERICAN LITERATURE
AND LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAS
OVERARCHING GOALS
The grade 11 ELA curriculum is intended to assist students with three broad goals:
 To develop abilities in the four domains of language: speaking, listening, reading, and
writing. A high degree of proficiency in each domain is essential to fulfilling ACC’s
mission to prepare all students for college-level work.

To develop the capacity to think critically about what they read, but also to think
critically about the world around them. Critical consciousness is essential to academic
success. More importantly, as students analyze and contemplate the environment in
which they live, they become increasingly aware of the various forces that impact them
daily. Such knowledge enables students take control of their lives, and hopefully, to
make a difference in the lives of the people around them. Ultimately, critical
consciousness helps students to become better citizens who can lead more fulfilling
lives.

To understand the evolving definition of what comprises American literature. If we are
to understand our current historical context, it is crucial that we also have a sense of how
America has become the country it is today. Literature provides the human component
of the historical record. An understanding of the past informs the present and provides
guidance for the future. We will pursue wisdom through consideration of essential
questions such as,
o What does literature of different times, places, and with different audiences, tell
us about the context from which it arose? What does it tell us about ourselves,
who we are, and where we came from?
o What happens to the character and culture of a place over time? What is
America? Who is America? What does it mean to be an American? Is it a set
concept, or is it permanently in flux?
GRADING
PARTICIPATION
30%
HOMEWORK
20%
ESSAYS
25%
TESTS
25%
ORGANIZATION
A chronological approach to literature may be easiest, but I believe that it is not the most
effective approach to this course. Instead, I will connect texts from different literary
movements and periods according to themes, ideas, and elements of form. Some pairings are
made in the interest of emphasizing likeness, while others are meant to highlight polarity.
Nonetheless, maintaining awareness of the historical context out of which a given work arose
deepens a student’s understanding of the work, so we will maintain a giant timeline in the back
of the room to provide a visual representation of when each book occurs. This resource can also
be used to track key terms, post insightful analyses, and add artistic elements. Such tracking is
essential, because throughout the year we will be referring back to texts that we have already
read in an attempt to develop theories about the interaction among the various periods and
movements in American literary history. In addition, we will conclude the year with an
examination of some literary exemplars from the rest of the Americas. We will look for
commonality and contrast among writers from various parts of the Americas, including those
writers working in the United States who have been the focus of the first three quarters of the
year.
PRE-UNIT 1:
WAYS TO LOOK AT LITERATURE;
WAYS TO TALK ABOUT LITERATURE
OBJECTIVES
 Scaffold: Teach basic critical thinking skills
 Introduce, define, and apply relevant terms
 Establish expectations for class discussion
TEXTS
 The Giving Tree
 Poetry: Black Star “Respiration”
This “pre-“ unit exists for students to learn some ways of looking at literature. We focus on texts that are
not traditional to a high school English class. The texts are easily accessible, and often familiar, so that
students can acquire the analytical skill without being frustrated by a challenging text.
1. Introduce, define, and apply literary theory. Key terms: Marxist, Formalist, Feminist,
Psychoanalytical
2. Practice with The Giving Tree.
3. Practice with “Respiration” by Mos Def and Talib Kweli
4. Read “The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction” from NY Times
UNIT 1
DISSENT: AN AMERICAN IDEAL
DIDACTIC RIDICULE, LOGICAL PERSUASION
AND SOFT SUBVERSION
OBJECTIVES
 Scaffold: Teach basic critical thinking skills
 Introduce, define, and apply relevant terms
 Establish criteria for effective class discussion
 Practice viewing literature from multiple perspectives
 Establish an understanding of the literary context out of which each work arises
UNIT GOALS, ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS, AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
- What is the function of the literary artist?
- Does art hold up a mirror to life, or is it, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, “a hammer with which to shape it”?
- How and why do different readers arrive at opposing interpretations of a text?
- How does a literary artist use language to critique society? What techniques enable such critique?
- How is dissent essential to a functioning democracy?
- To what extent do writers and artists reflect and promote the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- To what extent do writers and artists critique the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- Where do we draw the line between offense and satire?
- How do writers of later generations reflect the philosophical and stylistic influences of their predecessors?
- How do writers of later generations reject and react against the philosophical and stylistic influences of their
predecessors?
-What are the defining stylistic and philosophical characteristics of each literary movement or period?
Because it focuses on the fundamental American ideal of dissent, this is an exceptionally large unit. Therefore,
we will break it up into subunits, as seen below.
AUTHOR
PRINCIPAL TEXTS
GENRE, MOVEMENT, PERIOD
SATIRE: An Introduction from the Master
Twain, Mark
“The Lowest Animal”
Pre-modernism; satire; realism; picaresque;
(1835-1910)
The Adventures of Huckleberry
bildungsroman; “Great American Novel”
Finn
Vonnegut, Kurt
(1922-2007)
AMERICA AT WAR
Slaughterhouse-Five
Post-Modernism; satire; black comedy; sciencefiction
Heller, Joseph
(1923-1999)
Catch-22 (excerpt, ch. 5)
Post-Modernism; satire; black comedy; sciencefiction
Paine, Thomas
(1737-1809)
Common Sense
Political pamphlet; persuasive essay; American
Enlightenment; rationalism
Hemingway, Ernest
(1899-1961)
“Hills Like White Elephants”
The Sun Also Rises
Modernism; realism; iceberg theory
(or theory of mission); expatriate novel
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
(1804-1864)
“Young Goodman Brown”
Short story; figurative war between good and evil;
Dark Romanticism; Gothic literature
O’Brien, Tim
(1946-present)
The Things They Carried
(excerpts)
War/Vietnam story; metafiction
Komunyakaa, Yusef
(1947-present)
“Facing It”
Poetry about the aftermath of war;
THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE OPPRESSED
“Ain’t I a Woman”
Speech; abolitionism; Women’s Rights
Truth, Sojourner
(1797-1883)
Cady Stanton, Elizabeth
(1815-1902)
“The Seneca Falls Declaration”
Speech; Women’s Rights; political writing;
persuasive writing
Chopin, Kate
(1850-1904)
“The Story of an Hour”
“Desiree’s Baby”
Feminist literature; realism; local color
Perkins Gilman,
Charlotte
(1860-1935)
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
Feminist literature; Gothic literature; sociopolitical allegory; psychological case study
Butler, Octavia
(1947-2006)
“Bloodchild”
Science-fiction; fantasy; horror
Piercy, Marge
(1936-present)
“Barbie Doll”
Feminist literature; poetry; social justice
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
(1804-1864)
The Scarlet Letter
(excerpts)
Dark Romanticism; Gothic literature; symbolic
novel; historical fiction
Hughes, Langston
(1902-1967)
Selected works
Harlem Renaissance; Jazz poetry; Modernism
SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS, MEDIA, AND ACTIVITIES
 Opening pages of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, including excerpts from letters
of Christopher Columbus and Journals of Bartolome de las Casas.
 Shrek: Opening scene (Goes with Walter Scott reference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSif4R4lt4
 Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”
 Dave Chappelle’s “Black White Supremacist” (S1E01 12:00)
 Real world analog to Chappelle’s satire: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/csanad-szegedijewish-resign-europeanparliament_n_1789108.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009&src=sp&comm_ref=false
 History and video of Capoeira as a form of “wearing the mask”
 Clip of Huck Griffin from Family Guy (S2E08 4:50)
 Clips from The Daily Show and the Colbert Report about Huck Finn in the news
 Clips about the art of the bull fight (related to The Sun Also Rises)
 Excerpt from the PBS documentary Paris: Luminous Years
 I am always on the lookout for others!
ASSESSMENTS
 Daily class discussions
 Reading quizzes
 Sub-unit exam
 Short essays addressing the function and form of satirical texts
UNIT 2
(HU)MAN AND NATURE; (HU)MAN AGAINST NATURE:
AMERICAN APPROACHES TO LIFE, NATURE, AND THE SPIRIT
OBJECTIVES
 Introduce, define, and apply relevant terms
 Engage in effective class discussion: formulate original perspectives; listen and respond to perspectives
of peers
 Establish an understanding of the literary context out of which each work arises
 Identify, analyze, and explain how writers manipulate language for artistic, political, or personal
purposes
UNIT GOALS, ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS, AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
- What is the function of the literary artist?
- Does art hold up a mirror to life, or is it, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, “a hammer with which to shape it”?
- How and why do different readers arrive at opposing interpretations of a text?
- How does a literary artist use language to critique society? What techniques enable such critique?
- How is dissent essential to a functioning democracy?
- To what extent do writers and artists reflect and promote the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- To what extent do writers and artists critique the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- How do writers of later generations reflect the philosophical and stylistic influences of their predecessors?
- How do writers of later generations reject and react against the philosophical and stylistic influences of their
predecessors?
-What are the defining stylistic and philosophical characteristics of each literary movement or period?
AUTHOR
PRINCIPAL TEXTS
GENRE, MOVEMENT, PERIOD
Bradford, William
Of Plymouth Plantation
Puritan history; autobiography
(1590-1657)
Rowlandson, Mary
A Narrative of the Captivity and
Captivity narrative; Puritan literature; memoir
(1637-1711)
Restoration of Mrs. Mary
Rowlandson
Edwards, Jonathon
“Sinners in the Hands of an
Sermon; Puritan Revival/Great Awakening;
(1703-1758)
Angry God”
jeremiad; didacticism
Paine, Thomas
(1737-1809)
Excerpts from
The Age of Reason
Persuasive essay; Rationalist/Enlightenment
philosophy; deism
Irving, Washington
(1783-1859)
“The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” or “The Devil and
Tom Walker”
Early American fiction; short story; conflict
between good and evil;
Poe, Edgar Allan
(1809-1849)
Selected stories
Gothic literature; Dark Romanticism; macabre;
mystery; detective fiction
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
(1804-1864)
Excerpts from The Scarlet
Letter
“Young Goodman Brown” (if
not done in previous unit)
Excerpts from Moby Dick
Short story; figurative war between good and evil;
Dark Romanticism; Gothic literature; historical
fiction
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
(1803-1882)
Selected essays and poems
Transcendentalism; Romanticism; individualism;
mysticism
Thoreau, Henry David
(1817-1862)
Selected essays
Transcendentalism; Romanticism; individualism;
civil disobedience; abolitionism; pacifism;
political essays
Melville, Herman
(1819-1891)
ASSESSMENTS
 Daily class discussions
 Reading quizzes
 Unit exam
 Essay: Formalist analysis of contemporary media
Epic; quest; allegory; philosophical novel; the
sublime; psychological novel; Dark Romanticism
UNIT 3
THE SELF-MADE (HU)MAN
“Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story
and it's time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.”
― Bill Moyers
OBJECTIVES
 Introduce, define, and apply relevant terms
 Engage in effective class discussion: formulate original perspectives; listen and respond to perspectives
of peers
 Establish an understanding of the literary context out of which each work arises
 Identify, analyze, and explain how writers manipulate language for artistic, political, or personal
purposes
 Identify and discuss these stories of Americans engaged in creation of the self
UNIT GOALS, ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS, AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
- What is the function of the literary artist?
- Does art hold up a mirror to life, or is it, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, “a hammer with which to shape it”?
- How and why do different readers arrive at opposing interpretations of a text?
- How does a literary artist use language to critique society? What techniques enable such critique?
- How is dissent essential to a functioning democracy?
- To what extent do writers and artists reflect and promote the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- To what extent do writers and artists critique the ethos of a specific time, place, and group?
- Where do we draw the line between offense and satire?
- How do writers of later generations reflect the philosophical and stylistic influences of their predecessors?
- How do writers of later generations reject and react against the philosophical and stylistic influences of their
predecessors?
- What are the defining stylistic and philosophical characteristics of each literary movement or period?
- How do slave narratives differ according to gender?
AUTHOR
PRINCIPAL TEXTS
GENRE, MOVEMENT, PERIOD
Franklin, Benjamin
The Autobiography of
Self-help book; autobiography; rationalism;
(1706-1790)
Benjamin Franklin
Enlightenment; The American Dream
(excerpts)
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
(1896-1940)
The Great Gatsby
Modernist novel; Jazz Age novel; “Great
American Novel”; The American Dream
Jacobs, Harriet
(1813-1897)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave
Girl
Slave narrative; autobiography; abolitionist
literature; didactic literature; bildungsroman
Wheatley, Phillis
(1753-1784)
Selected poems
American Enlightenment; poetry on classical,
religious, moral, and political themes
Douglass, Frederick
(1818-1895)
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, an
American Slave
The Autobiography of
Malcolm X
As Told To
Slave narrative; autobiography; abolitionist
literature; didactic literature; bildungsroman
X, Malcolm
(1925-1965)
Haley, Alex
Autobiography; Neo-slave narrative; American
Dream/American Nightmare; bildungsroman
(1921-1992)
Alex Haley
ASSESSMENTS
 Daily class discussions
 Reading quizzes
 Unit exam
 Essay: Analyze and evaluate two or more texts from this unit
 Narrative: Write your own personal history, with a move toward how you will create the self you wish to
be
ATTENTION-GETTERS
In addition to the texts of this course, I will use attention-getters throughout the year. This usually takes the
form of media other than the principal texts of the course. This inclusion is based on the belief that providing
multiple entry points that appeal to a variety of learners will increase student performance, while also allowing
students to establish connections between the books they study in class and the media that inundates them daily.
Recognition of such connections may also help students develop critical consciousness. Some examples are
included in units above, but I am always searching for new ways to engage students.
BEYOND ELA
These objectives are beyond the realm of the traditional ELA course, but they are helpful in pursuing a rich
and fulfilling life. We will engage with these articles and media at opportune times over the course of the year.
LITERATURE AND EMPATHY
 “The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/theneuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all
RESILIENCE
 Carol Dweck’s Mindest: The New Psychology of Success
PERSISTENCE
 “10,000 Hour Rule” from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.
FLOW
 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Excerpt from Flow: The Psychology of Optimum Experience
 Alva Noe “The Zombie Within” http://m.npr.org/news/front/153025680?singlePage=true
MOTIVATION
 RSA Animate based on Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
HEALTH
 Tips about how simple changes in diet and exercise can improve learning
THE EFFECT OF INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT
 Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
WRITING
ACC differs from most high schools in that each student has two hours of ELA each day. Students
receive a separate grade for English and Writing, however, essays will count towards grades in both
classes. There will be 3 main foci of the Writing class.




1. PAPERS
Students will learn about and practice effective writing for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Most writing will be analytical in nature, but there will be some room for creative and narrative
assignments as well.
2. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Vocab: Students will learn hundreds of new vocabulary words. The words come from the
Princeton Review’s list of the words that show up on the SAT most frequently
Grammar: Students will learn to identify and revise common grammatical problems. This will
serve to improve their own writing, and it will prepare them for the writing section of the SAT.
3. SAT PREP
Students will learn a wealth of strategies for taking the SAT. Love it or hate it, the SAT is weighed
heavily in the admissions process at many schools. Any student who devotes the requisite time is sure to
see an improvement of several hundred points.
GRADING
PARTICIPATION
QUIZZES
ESSAYS
30%
30%
40%